Last year, Successful Farming magazine and Exmark introduced the Farm Beautiful Contest. Our mailboxes overflowed with photos of historic barns, scenic landscapes, and pristine shops. The entries included passionate stories of children returning to the family farm, a dedication to and love of the land, and farms that had been in families for more than a century. The heartwarming stories inspired us to bring back the contest for a second year.

My view of pristine shops...John Kirchhoff 04/24/2015 @ 8:38am
I've found that you can get a good feeling for what a person is like by looking at his shop and what hangs on the walls or sets on the shelves. Look at one of my shelves and you see paint, body putty and four spray guns hanging there. Look on the other wall and you see a Packard hubcap and Studebaker steering wheel. That tells you that I like to restore old vehicles. Look on one shelf and you see assorted micrometers, calipers, telescoping gauges, dial indicators and such and you know that I must do some kind of exacting work. Look on another shelf and you see a box that says "engine overhaul tools", which pretty well explains the former tools. Wood lathe over there, radial arm saw here, wire and arc welder, torch and you pretty well figure that I work with both wood and metal. Look at the home made specialty tools and it appears I work on some old or oddball machines. Then combine the Packard hubcap with a pre-50s Ford V8 hubcap, rusty Civil War bayonet and other odds and ends and you get the idea I'm a history buff. Then in the corner you see several survey levels with one a 30 power, rods and tripods and you figure I must do some kind of surveying of conservation practices. And when you consider that the shop floor is dirty and stained, the multiple work benches are scarred and oil stained and there is plenty of disarray with many different jobs partially finished and you know that I actually do stuff out there. Plus you quickly know that I use my shop to work in and as a "bigger and better than yours" showpiece. Some people have beautiful, well equipped shops but don't know a torque wrench from a torque amplifier.